Quick Critique

Sticky Note:

How will the keypad be easier than that non descript twisty knob?

Sooooo…A lot of the feedback I received sounded similar to this or mentioned something along the lines of “overcomplicating” the toaster. I get that. Especially the not very necessary user profile selection step. I was trying to accommodate different toast preferences. I’ve met some people who truly enjoy nearly burnt toast; which is wild to me. Please love yourself if you are reading this and are one of those people.

Reflecting on why I received so much feedback like this, I think I wasn’t clear enough in describing how closely this would operate like a microwave and I forgot to say the preset selection and toast ratings would be optional. A microwave has many more buttons besides the ones used for setting the cooking time. There are buttons for setting the power level, defrosting, warming, and auto heating food. There are even presets for popcorn, vegetables, beverages, and even pizza! Besides me, I know very few people who actually use those buttons. They just ignore them. Much like microwaves with their buttons most everyone ignores, users can also ignore the optional smart toasting steps as well and just select a toast level as the first step.

So in response to the note above and all the other feedback notes that are similar, no it’s not more or less difficult or complicated than the twisty knobs. People are familiar with the keypads on a microwave. I might be going out on a limb here, but I was counting on the user to use their microwave skills to learn how to use the keypad on the toaster.

In my presentation, I wanted to focus on the feature that would set this new toaster idea apart from current toasters. Despite knowing full well I was designing for myself and that most people would prefer dealing with the high likely hood of mistakingly burning their toast, I forgot to give details about how this new toaster could function the same way as traditional toasters they know and love. Effective presentation is important and I would do better to think about that the next time I go up.

Interesting side note: Thinking more thoroughly about microwaves and their unused and sometimes unnecessary buttons made me think about Samyak’s issue with elevator close buttons. Why do manufacturer’s include all these options on microwaves that most users ignore? Could it be a control thing? Perhaps users place more value on microwaves with all of these options? It would be an interesting case study to gather data on how people use and interact with microwaves.